On 3 Nov 2004, at 02:42, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
>
> I have a couple of additional questions for the SVG WG:
>
> -- When users ask for additional flowing text features, such as floats
> and tables, will you add them to SVG 1.3?
Let me separate the question a little.
We discussed adding additional text features (for SVG 1.2 and
future). We rejected them all in favour of using XHTML for such things
(eg. lists). As SVG layout is not at all like CSS layout, floats are
way out of scope.
Then you mentioned tables. There have been many requests for
grid-based layout mechanisms in SVG (for graphics and text). It *may*
be considered for a future version of SVG. However, IMO the primary use
case would be laying out things like UIs (eg. toolbars), not really
text (although it could be used that way). In preliminary discussion
of this topic the most common suggestion has been to simply allow
<html:table> in SVG. Adobe's most recent SVG release does this
(within a <foreignObject>).
>
> -- You say that SVG text is presentational and not semantic, but then
> why does flowPara exist?
I don't think it should. I'll be arguing that it should be removed.
The other slightly semantic element is <flowLine>. The problem here
is that Ian's suggested alternative used CSS, which isn't required
in any SVG implementation. Any ideas?
Dean